Mel was right about my wanting to avoid investigative partnerships. During my time in Homicide at Seattle PD, I felt I had been exceptionally hard on partners. Ron Peters and Big Al Lindstrom had both sustained line-of-duty life-changing injuries. Much later, Sue Danielson had died in a hail of bullets. In all three instances subsequent departmental inquiries had exonerated me of any fault. Officially, Seattle PD had concluded that I was blameless. Undeterred by facts and official findings, however, I had continued to hold myself accountable in each and every instance. As far as I was concerned, my partners’ biggest problem—their single common liability—had been their star-crossed association with me.
My relationship with Melissa Soames, however, was entirely different from the ones I had shared with each of those other partners. For one thing, I sure as hell hadn’t been in love with Ron Peters and Big Al Lindstrom. I hadn’t been in love with Sue, either. I had felt protective of her, had wanted to be her mentor, but there had never been any romantic overtones on my part or hers.
But I definitely was in love with Mel. On the surface of it, that should have made me that much more reluctant to put her in any danger. But I had seen how Mel reacted when she was under fire. I knew that if things got tough I could trust her implicitly. When you’re out in the real world dodging bullets, it doesn’t get any better than that.
“Ross Connors is a little behind the times,” I said, pulling her close. “We were partners long before he got around to saying so.”
CHAPTER 10
When you awaken to the enticing smell of freshly brewed coffee it’s easy to think that all’s right with the world. Mel’s side of the bed was cool to the touch. There was a hint of floral fragrance lingering beneath the aroma of coffee. That would be her shampoo. So Mel had been up long enough to shower and make coffee. I got up and wandered out into the dining room, where I found my two daily crossword puzzle pages, removed them from their (for me) completely extraneous newspapers, and laid them out on the dining room table. Mel came down the hall a moment after I poured my first mug of coffee. She was fully dressed.
“I’m going to go see Lenny,” she announced, slipping on a pair of low-heeled pumps.
I knew that meant she was on her way to visit the crime scene folks at King County to check out the missing-bullet situation.
“I’ve talked to Todd,” she added. “He’s on his way here.”
“Here?” I’m sure I sounded more than a bit territorial. After all, a man’s home is his castle, and the idea of having an itinerant economist show up on my doorstep along with my first cup of coffee did not compute.
“Yes, here. Ross doesn’t want us working on this in the office, remember? Todd’s bringing abstracts of the files on all the cases Ross mentioned last night, and the ones on my list, too.”
“Has anybody told Harry about our new working arrangements?”
“Already handled,” Mel said with a smile. “Ross took care of that bright and early this morning. What about the kids? Have you heard anything from them?”
“As far as I know they’re sightseeing today.”
“So you’re off ‘Gumpa’ duty?” she asked.
“Looks like,” I said.
She gave me a good-bye kiss and left, steaming travel cup firmly in hand. We Seattleites don’t go anywhere or do anything without our personal jolt of java.
Able to ignore the cross-lake traffic reports for once, I settled in at the table with my own hit of caffeine. I doubted Ross Connors would begrudge me the time it would take for me to whip through the Friday New York Times puzzle. I was making excellent progress when my cell phone rang. I figured it was either Mel, who had forgotten something, or else the kids, who had decided they wanted to take me up on my offer to buy breakfast after all, but the number wasn’t one I recognized.
“Mr….” It was a male voice—a relatively young male voice. “Beaumont,” he said uncertainly, butchering my name by pronouncing the “Beau” part the same way you’d say the B-U in “Butte” instead of the way it’s supposed to be pronounced, Beau as in “go.” If this had been my landline phone, I would have expected to hear a recorded spiel offering to sell me vinyl siding for my nonexistent house or to pick up my household castoffs to benefit the blind. But this was my cell phone. Solicitation calls aren’t supposed to intrude on my cell phone minutes.
“The name is Beaumont,” I said, pronouncing it properly for him but all the while trying to sound as cantankerous and off-putting as possible.
“My name’s Donald,” he said nervously. “Donnie, actually. Donnie Cosgrove. I think you talked to my wife earlier this week.”
Was that just this week? I wondered. So much had happened that it seemed eons ago, but I realized it had only been a few days earlier, on Monday, when I had stopped by the Cosgroves’ neat little Redmond rambler.
“Of course,” I said, at once modifying my tone. “DeAnn. What can I do for you, Mr. Cosgrove?”
“I told her I was going to go clean the jerk’s clock, but DeAnn begged me to talk to you instead.”
“Wait a minute,” I said. “Slow down. What are you talking about?”
“Jack,” he said. “Jack Lawrence, DeAnn’s stepfather. He came roaring through here yesterday while I was at work, yelling and raising hell. Woke the kids up in the middle of their naps. Threw our whole household into an uproar.”